You Can Have Any SERP You Want as Long as It’s Google

Michael Gray

By Michael Gray
In Google  

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I was just reading the 10e20 top 50 of 2007 and picked this up check out the SERP for [I am Legend] screen shot for posterity …

i am legend - Google Search

 

The top 3 results are Google owned properties, for those of you still naive enough to believe that you aren’t competing with Google for content creation, I hope this serves as a wakeup call. IMDB ok nothing wrong there, but should be a little lower IMHO. Wikipedia (twice) because it’s a Google law that Wikipedia (and soon Knols) has to be in every SERP. Followed by the official movie website, which IMHO should be #1.

You may think Google is your friend today, but I think this really demonstrates that they are your competition. Sure they may not be competing with you right now in your market, but as they continue to expand into more and more verticals, there is no doubt they fully intend to squash you like a bug … unless of course you buy your way to the top with adwords …

Related posts:

  1. How to Turn Google Knols into an MFA Scraper The follow
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  3. Google Loves Wikipedia – Even the Empty Pages If you

Crazyegg Link Tracking

{ 8 comments }

Chris December 31, 2007 at 10:19 pm

I’m guessing, right now, 90% of the people searching for [i am legend] are looking for movie times, so Google is returning the results the users need.

I’m guessing the Warner Brothers site should be a bit higher since people may want to see the preview as well.

I can see where you going with this though. It could get quite evil. When Walmart signs a deal with Google and you search for [toilet paper] and you get a Google Checkout link directly to Walmart, then it will be too late.

Lea de Groot December 31, 2007 at 10:39 pm

I think it will be self correcting – people will turn away from ‘one central service’
*but* we are going to have to make that happen.
Why? Not just self interest – any monoculture is not healthy for humanity.
But the timeframe for the correction may not be near :(

Lea de Groot December 31, 2007 at 10:42 pm

interestingly, I see iamlegend.warnerbros.com at #3 – below the 2 onebox results, but above imdb and wiki

Mitch at Money News December 31, 2007 at 10:49 pm

I think the ‘I Am Legend’ search is fine with the book being #1 since that’s what the movie was based on. However when you do a search for ‘I am Legend movie’, the warner bros site is still #3. Google should move the news, and their trailor listing to the top right of the page in that white space, and leave the SERPs alone.

The same search under Yahoo though shows the Yahoo movie site as #1 with a big image of their trailor site, and the WB listing as #2. Google isn’t alone for putting their company first in the SERPs.

Igor The Troll December 31, 2007 at 11:35 pm

Michael I recommend you to use
http://www.hakia.com/search.aspx?q=what+is+social+engineering+malware

Also understand the root of the problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering

You can also see it being addressed by StopBadware a Harvard project incubator.
http://groups.google.com/group/stopbadware/browse_thread/thread/34784e113bb0e27e

Regards,
Igor

Igor The Troll December 31, 2007 at 11:39 pm

Michael, my comment has been flagged by your Spam filter.

You must be using Akismet and it flagged WikiPedia url.

Be very careful with Akismet it has a false positive problem.

Igor

Demerzel January 1, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Graywolf, would love to hear your thoughts on whether a full SERP of Google products would result in people moving away from Google (since its no longer organic per say), people just not caring since they wouldn’t know what products are owned by Google and are solely concerned with good results, or something else entirely.

Cannot find in google? ask bhau! January 3, 2008 at 5:36 am

This is wonderful information about google. I really appreciate your efforts to bring this information to us.

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